to, and would take their places as I called them.  At least, if Octo attempted to get before Novem in going through the bars (I have heard people speak of a “pair of bars” when there were six or eight of them), or into the stable, the matter of precedence was settled then and there, and, once settled, there was no dispute about it afterwards.  Novem either put her horns into Octo’s ribs, and Octo shambled to one side, or else the two locked horns and tried the game of push and gore until one gave up.  Nothing is stricter than the etiquette of a party of cows.  There is nothing in royal courts equal to it; rank is exactly settled, and the same individuals always have the precedence.  You know that at Windsor Castle, if the Royal Three-Ply Silver Stick should happen to get in front of the Most Royal Double-and-Twisted Golden Rod, when the court is going in to dinner, something so dreadful would happen that we don’t dare to think of it.  It is certain that the soup would get cold while the Golden Rod was pitching the Silver Stick out of the Castle window into the moat, and perhaps the island of Great Britain itself would split in two.  But the people are very careful that it never shall happen, so we shall probably never know what the effect would be.  Among cows, as I say, the question is settled in short order, and in a different manner from what it sometimes is in other society.  It is said that in other society there is sometimes a great scramble for the first place, for the leadership, as it is called, and that women, and men too, fight for what is called position; and in order to be first they will injure their neighbors by telling stories about them and by backbiting, which is the meanest kind of biting there is, not excepting the bite of fleas.  But in cow society there is nothing of this detraction in order to get the first place at the crib, or the farther stall in the stable.  If the question arises, the cows turn in, horns and all, and settle it with one square fight, and that ends it.  I have often admired this trait in cows.

Besides Latin, I used to try to teach the cows a little poetry, and it is a very good plan.  It does not do the cows much good, but it is very good exercise for a boy farmer.  I used to commit to memory as good short poems as I could find (the cows liked to listen to “Thanatopsis” about as well as anything), and repeat them when I went to the pasture, and as I drove the cows home through the sweet ferns and down the rocky slopes.  It improves a boy’s elocution a great deal more than driving oxen.

It is a fact, also, that if a boy repeats “Thanatopsis” while he is milking, that operation acquires a certain dignity.

II

THE BOY AS A FARMER